Travis Butler: After I completed my apprenticeship and my builders course I went out and did some renovations and extensions with a builder. And then I was branching out into building my own new homes. I got an opportunity to start doing some TAFE teaching, which I took, thoroughly enjoyed working with some younger guys trades and apprentices and moved on into some head teaching. And after that I looked into going back to building.

When I was looking to leave TAFE, I was looking around for a challenge, different opportunity. That led me into looking at franchises and building opportunities in the franchise area. I probably looked at three to four different franchise models. I met with James a few times and I liked the fact that I was gonna become a part of a smaller team of franchise builders rather than a really large organisation. When meeting with James I just liked the systems and the plans I really just…I went straight to it.

The difference between my speccies and Stroud Homes building was…the main difference is the professionalism and using the systems. It allows you to do more homes with confidence that the systems will be there to keep the standards and the professionalism up. As my speccies, as my own homes I was probably doing two a year as a max, even combining them sometimes with TAFE. And as now as a franchisee with Stroud, we’re probably doing 15 to 20 in my second year. From doing speccies to moving into the Stroud organisation I’m now fully off the tools. So my back was suffering a little bit but now I’m full-time in the office, more of a organisation and a managerial role than actually hands on construction. Just working in the office basically full-time as a manager and looking after staff and, yeah, getting some family life back.